The Bookseller of Kabul: Summary and book reviews of The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad, plus links to an excerpt from The Bookseller of Kabul and a biography of Asne Seierstad.
The Bookseller of Kabul
by Asne Seierstad
Hardcover: Oct 2003,
320 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2004,
320 pages.
In Afghanistan, just after the fall of the Taliban, a bookseller named Sultan Khan allowed a western journalist to move into his home and experience firsthand his family's life in the newly liberated capital city of Kabul.
From that act of openness emerges this remarkable book, already an international bestseller--the most intimate look yet at ordinary life for those who have weathered Afghanistan's extraordinary upheavals. One husband, two wives, five children, and many other relatives sharing four small rooms opened up their lives, unforgettably.
First is Sultan himself, a man whose love of books has exposed him to great risks over his thirty years in the trade. He has seen his volumes censored, ripped apart, even burned in the street by the Communists and the Taliban. Each time he rebuilt his business, hiding the most controversial texts, surviving prison, traveling treacherous back roads to Pakistan to order much-needed schoolbooks. He takes joy in selling books of history, science, art, religion, and poetry, and defends his business against competitors and theft with a primal ferocity.
But Sultan is also a committed Muslim with strict views on filial respect and the role of women. We meet his wife, Sharifa, when she learns that Sultan is taking a new bride, as his status in the community dictates. Despite custom, it is agonizing for the mother of Sultan's children to see her place usurped. We follow their teenage son, Mansur, as he embarks on his first religious pilgrimage, which embodies all the excitement of youth's first rebellion. And we see Sultan's younger sisters, as one coquettishly prepares for her wedding while another seeks a job to escape her family's tight grip.
Stepping back from the page, award-winning journalist Åsne Seierstad allows the Khans to speak for themselves about their joys, sorrows, rivalries, loves, dreams, and temptations. Through this close-knit household, we gain an intimate view-as few outsiders have seen it-of life in an Islamic country just beginning to find its way between the forces of modernity and tradition.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Publishers Weekly
An international bestseller, it will likely stand as one of the best books of reportage of Afghan life after the fall of the Taliban.
Library Journal - Lucille M. Boone
For more than 30 years, Khan risked arrest by selling books and other printed materials. Yet at home, in a cramped, war-battered apartment shared by mother, siblings, wives, children, and nephews, Sultan is a tyrant.... Seirestad presents a vivid, intimate, yet frustrating picture of family life after the Taliban. Her book has been translated into 14 languages and is sure to be of interest to general readers here who are curious about life in Afghanistan.
Kirkus Reviews
A slice of Afghanistan today, rendered with a talent for fine, sobering prose and strange, unnerving settings that recall Ryszard Kapuscinski.
Booklist - Ellen Loughran
....Family members come across as very real, creating understanding at the least and sympathy at best....this fascinating, thought-provoking look at Afghanistan will add depth and a different point of view to nonfiction collections.
Washington Post Book World
...an admirable, revealing portrait of daily life in a country that Washington claims to have liberated but does not begin to understand. Seierstad writes of individuals but her message is larger....
Boston Globe
... a compelling portrait of a country at a crossroads.
The New York Times Book Review - Richard McGill
Seierstad is a sharp and often lyrical observer of Afghan domestic life. Even in Ingrid Christophersen's slightly stiff translation, ''The Bookseller of Kabul'' reads like a novel and is absorbing reportage....From a strictly literary perspective, ''The Bookseller of Kabul'' is an effective portrait of one rather unhappy Afghan family. It is certainly the most intimate description of an Afghan household ever produced by a Western journalist.
The Washington Post - Mark Hertsgaard
… [Seierstad's] closely observed, affecting account of the family's daily life, and especially of the virtual slavery its females endure, suggests that change will come slowly if at all to Afghanistan … Seierstad writes of individuals, but her message is larger, and no one who reads it will be sanguine about transforming this very traditional culture into a modern democracy anytime soon.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Cynthia Martinez Insightful I enjoyed reading this book very much and wished I was there in the flat with the women to share their experiences. The book was well written, very descriptive and touching.
Rated of 5
by kay The Bookseller of Kabul Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad has written a compelling disclosure of life in a "middle class" Afghani family. Considering the extreme strictures of that country, it is quite amazing that she was accepted into the "Kahn"... Read More
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities.
Evoking both Barbara Kingsolver and Andrea Barrett, this enthralling fiction, wise and generous, explores some of the crucial social and cultural challenges that, over the years, have come to shape our world.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis - a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.
Spring of 1767: Erasmus Kemp has brought back fugitive settlers from America, among them Sullivan, an Irish fiddler....The Quality of Mercy is rich and rewarding historical fiction of the highest order from the master, Barry Unsworth.
I received this book at a preview in October, read it in days. Usually one book grabs me at these previews and this book was it. Beautifully...
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I really enjoyed this book from beginning to end. It was sweet, funny, and sad. You know a book is great when that happens. I loved the way the...
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I purchased this book many years ago at a garage sale and let it sit on my shelf, knowing that one day I would have to face it and read it. I feared...
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The Washington Post - Mark Hertsgaard
of 5
by Cynthia Martinez
of 5
by kay
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